At the 5th Annual World Medical Innovation Forum (WMIF), hosted by
Partners HealthCare, three days of panels and presentations highlighted
new applications of artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning and
natural language processing technologies in medical devices and
healthcare.

Digital health is on fire, and the application of AI in digital
health and medical devices is the flame that burns the brightest.
According to a new report, Q1 2019 VC funding for digital health
startups grew to $2 billion globally in a total of 149 funding deals
(Table 1). (1)

At the MDG (Medical Development Group) meeting in Boston in early
May 2019, two panelists at the event, "Pathways to Success for
MedTech Startups," were asked, "What percent of the devices
you invest in have a digital component? How will that percentage change
over the next 10 years?" Ibraheem Badejo, senior director of new
ventures at the Johnson & Johnson Innovation Center said, "I
don't know if I can give you a percentage, but J&J is making
substantial investments in digital health platforms. For example, we
just acquired Auris Health--a medical device company that develops a
robotics platform for use in endoluminal procedures and lung cancer
diagnosis--and I expect to continue leveraging digital platforms in our
medical businesses."

Another panelist, a member of a venture capital firm, said, "I
estimate that 20 percent of the opportunities we assess have a digital
component. While I can't say by how much, I expect this percentage
to increase over the next 10 years."

Nancy Briefs, the panel's moderator and a serial entrepreneur
in the process of launching her seventh medical device startup--Altrix
Bio--said, "Detection, monitoring, and diagnosis are all areas
where AI/machine learning can bring value in healthcare. Digital health
promises to enable earlier interventions, reduce the overall and growing
costs, and provide better outcomes. Digital health yields a lot of data,
but having somethinp' actionable' is key

Why This Is Important

Estimates vary, but according to market research reports, the
artificial intelligence market in healthcare was valued at $2.1 billion
in 2018 and is projected to grow to $36.1 billion by 2025--a CAGR of
50.2 percent. (2) The greatest unmet need in the digital health market
is to reduce U.S. healthcare costs, which have topped $3.5 trillion. (3)
Other factors driving the growth of AI and digital health are improved
computing power, machine learning and natural language processing
technologies, rapid 5G (fifth-generation cellular wireless technology),
and the declining cost of hardware.

Use Case--Reducing Errors in Diagnosis

What makes the WMIF such a great meeting is so many use cases are
presented by the best and brightest clinicians at Partners Healthcare.
For example, missed diagnoses are one of the leading causes of
preventable adverse events in healthcare, and diagnostic errors result
in death or injury to 40,000 to 80,000 patients per year. (4) Diagnostic
error is a challenge for all medical specialties and the overall
misdiagnosis rate is estimated at 10 to 15 percent. (4)

DXplain is a clinical decision support tool developed at the
Massachusetts General Hospital. (5) It uses AI and machine learning to
review the set of conditions or diagnoses a clinician should consider
based upon the symptoms a patient presents. Uncommon or atypical
conditions are also offered by this AI-driven tool.

Tools like DXplain that use AI to aid clinical diagnosis are still
in the very early stages, but studies are emerging that prove the
benefit. A 2017 Stanford study tested an AI diagnostic against 21
dermatologists on the comparative ability of each to identify skin
cancer. (6) The clinical findings found the AI diagnostic algorithm was
as accurate in diagnosing skin cancer as the cohort of dermatologists.
(7)

Dermatology and the ability to diagnose skin cancer are not the
only areas where AI adds value in diagnostics. AI is projected to be a
game-changer with new applications for reading and interpreting MRI and
other imaging tools. In pathology, there are multiple emerging
applications that will rely on AI and machine learning for high-volume
or quantitative evaluations.

AI and natural language processing can help reduce the burden of
healthcare administration for clinicians, a necessary but time-consuming
task that takes valuable time away from treating patients. By applying
AI-facilitated automation in insurance claims management, tedious and
often repetitive tasks, such as prior authorizations, will take away
less valuable clinician time. In a report from the AMA, prior
authorizations are one of many types of administrative processes that
eat up approximately 50 percent of a physician's office time. Less
than 30 percent of the day is spent on direct clinical care. (9) These
distractions from patient care are an enormous source of professional
discontent.

AI is contributing to new approaches in ophthalmology that can
improve patient care for the detection of diabetic retinopathy. In 2018,
the FDA approved a first-ever AI diagnostic tool that does not require
additional ophthalmologist review and can be used in primary care and
areas with few expert medical resources. (10) The segment of patients
with diabetes is greater than 30 million people in the U.S., so this
tool brings care to many Americans that otherwise would not have access
(Table 3). (11)

The implications for AI in patient monitoring are substantial. For
example, Real time EEG will automate EEG analysis so clinicians can
quickly detect and treat electrical aberrations to improve patient care.
In current scenarios, clinicians read EEGs manually and
intermittently--a tedious process. At the WMIF, it was reported that 30
terabytes of EEG data from thousands of patients have been analyzed to
create deep learning algorithms to automatically detect seizures in
patients in the ICU.

The Medi-Vantage Perspective

For medical device strategy developers, the WMIF is a great meeting
to get inside the heads of physicians and other healthcare experts to
find out what really matters to them. While clinicians were excited
about new AI-based medical device technologies, they were equally as
delighted with the potential of AI to give them more time to interact
with their patients.

"We talk a lot now about how dehumanizing the electronic
health record has been to healthcare," said Gregg Meyer, M.D.,
chief clinical officer for Partners HealthCare. (12) "I actually
think in five to 10 years, we might capture the opportunity to use
artificial intelligence to rehumanize healthcare, actually give me the
opportunity to be there with the patient, not sifting through things,
not worried about filling out the billing forms, not worried about
monitoring that follow up lab, but be with the patient, talking about
their illness and working with them."

References

(1) http://bit.ly/mpo190601

(2) http://bit.ly/mpo190602

(3) http://bit.ly/mpo190603

(4) http://bit.ly/mpo190604

(5) http://bit.ly/mpo190605

(6) http://bit.ly/mpo190606

(7) http://bit.ly/mpo190607

(8) http://bit.ly/mpo190608

(9) http://bit.ly/mpo190609

(10) http://bit.ly/mpo190610

(11) http://bit.ly/mpo190611

(12) http://bit.ly/mpo190612 [video of the panel session]

Maria Shepherd * President and Founder, Medi-Vantage

Maria Shepherd has more than 20 years of leadership experience in
medical device/life science marketing in small startups and top-tier
companies. After her industry career, including her role as vice
president of marketing for Oridion Medical, where she boosted the
company valuation prior to its acquisition by Covidien/Medtronic,
director of marketing for Philips Medical, and senior management roles
at Boston Scientific Corp., she founded Medi-Vantage. Medi-Vantage
provides marketing, business strategy, and innovation research for the
medical device, diagnostic, and digital health industries. The firm
quantitatively and qualitatively sizes and segments opportunities,
evaluates new technologies, provides marketing services, and assesses
prospective acquisitions. Shepherd has taught marketing and product
development courses and is a member of the Aligo Medtech Investment
Committee (www.aligo.com). She can be reached at 855-343-3100. Visit her
website at www.medi-vantage.com.